Green Valley incorporation effort could play role in Canoa's future

Tuesday, 28 September 1999
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/20-08-21.html

By Tony Davis
The Arizona Daily Star

While Pima County officials debate how to manage Canoa Ranch, Green Valley is considering an incorporation plan that could give its residents that power.
Some people leading the charge for incorporation have made it clear that they're not thrilled with the county's efforts to limit development on the ranch.
The prospect of incorporation is a big concern to ranch development opponents, because the county Board of Supervisors now has a three-vote ``green'' majority of Chairwoman Sharon Bronson, Raul Grijalva and Ray Carroll.
Last week the Green Valley Coordinating Council agreed to name a committee to look into the pros and cons of incorporating the retirement community of about 22,000 year-round residents.
The council is an umbrella association representing 56 homeowners' associations. It has no legal authority.
The community's residents have killed incorporation efforts at the polls three times in recent years, the latest in 1994.
Given the sensitivity of this issue, the council ordered that the latest committee be balanced with pro- and anti-incorporation representatives.
Those supporting incorporation say that times have changed. In particular, they cite what they say is the success of Sahuarita since its incorporation in 1994.
Back then, Green Valley residents feared that incorporation would mean a local property tax. They had concerns about whether a new town could afford its own police force, said Hugh Copeland, who chairs the Coordinating Council's planning and zoning committee.
Those fears didn't pan out in Sahuarita, which still lacks a property tax and has been able to support a police department, he said.
Other residents have expressed concerns about the possibility of Sahuarita and even Tucson annexing parts of Green Valley as those two municipalities continue to seek new territory.
Canoa Ranch is clearly a factor, too.
The Coordinating Council has always refused to take a stance on the ranch development. In January, numerous Green Valley residents spoke out against the unsuccessful Fairfield proposal for 6,100 homes on the ranch.
But many council leaders and its planning and zoning committee have long favored some kind of planned community there.
The 10-member planning committee includes four men in the real estate business and a Chamber of Commerce representative.
``We do not feel the logical expansion of Green Valley should be stopped,'' said Jim Hathaway, a Green Valley Realtor and a planning committee member.
Hathaway and other incorporation supporters say they don't necessarily favor Fairfield's 6,100-home proposal for the ranch that the supervisors killed last year. But they recall that county land use plans have long called for that area to be developed in some fashion when the market was ready.
Last week the Coordinating Council agreed to ask the county to postpone a scheduled Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on the ranch's comprehensive land use plan amendment. The hearing is still scheduled for tomorrow morning.
The county staff is proposing to scale back a 1995 amendment recommending that up to 37,000 homes be allowed on the ranch. The council wrote Bronson that Green Valley-area residents weren't informed of the proposal until late August and that they want to first discuss it in community public meetings.
An opponent of large-scale Canoa development, Eileen McLaren, said she once thought incorporation was a great idea. Now she thinks it would just let the same people who run the Coordinating Council run the new town, she said.
Jud Richardson, the council's president, says his worst nightmare for Canoa Ranch is wildcat development, McLaren said.
``This incorporation drive is not really about wildcat development,'' McLaren said. ``It's about the fact that this meeting is coming up with (the county Planning and Zoning Commission) and they want to get their own plan through.''
Copeland said Canoa Ranch isn't the paramount issue driving the incorporation study.
``It's giving people an opportunity to control their own destiny,'' he said.

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Check out this web site discussing the impact of development at Canoa Ranch.


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